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Weber Stake Academy first opened its doors for instruction at the LDS Second Ward Meeting House on the corner of 26th Street and Grant Avenue on January 7, 1889. The academy's two teachers, Louis F. Moench and Edwin Cutler, welcomed nearly one hundred students on the first day, and, by the end of its first term, 195 students in all had registered for the school. This monograph depicts the role the LDS church and its leaders played in founding the school, the background of its first educators and administrators and the financial challenges they confronted in operating the school from 1889 through 1894. Letters of appreciation for Louis F. Moench and a bibliography of primary sources are also provided. |
| OCR Text |
Show THE HISTORY OF THE WEBER STAKE ACADEMY THE PERIOD OF STRUGGLE 1889 1895 Chapter I Louis Frederick Moench was born in Neuffen, Wurtemberg, South Western Germany, July 29, 1846. The kingdom of Wurtemberg was at that time a center of education with the University of Tubingen at the head. Common schools and the gymnasiums were highly rated. As early as 1900 there was no person in the kingdom over ten years of age who could not read and write. Louis F. Moench attended the gymnasium probably during his seventh, eighth, ninth, and part of his tenth year. He was young enough to be impressed vividly by the teachings of the school, and old enough to remember the fundamental principles of the strictly formal education of the German schools. When just a boy of ten, Louis F. Moench left with his brothers and sisters for America. His father was in the land where opportunity beckoned, and his mother had died under the severe strain of taking care of a fatherless family. Even at nine the young man gave great promise. He read remarkably well, and although not the oldest in the large family of eleven, he seemed to be the most outstanding and the one on whom the mother seemed to depend for the greatest comfort in her dying days. The first years in the New World were difficult. The young boy longed for an education. The work in his father's tannery and the long walk of two miles to the nearest school were not conducive to the education Louis longed for. He studied at night, and having found a Spencerian copy book, he devoted hours and days to perfect his penmanship and to increase his knowledge of the English language. After a runaway experience in Canada he went to Chicago and entered the Bryant Stratton College, and at odd hours took private lessons at a dollar an hour, expensive for that time. In 1864. he completed with high honors the course of the school and was considered the best penman in the institution. Louis F. Moench and his school friend Henry Trescott started for California in the summer of 186b, having been told that California held great promise for young educators. They remained in Salt Lake City where they had been so cordially received and made at home by Mrs. Almeda Farr, wife of Winslow Farr, on Main and Second North Streets. |
